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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171998">idiot</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchesterstupid/pseuds/winchesterstupid'>winchesterstupid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>...kind of, Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Angelic Lore, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel Has Feelings for Dean Winchester, Castiel Has a Soul (Supernatural), Castiel Possessing Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Roommates, Castiel's Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Consensual Possession, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kinda, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sharing of Angelic Grace (Supernatural), The Empty (Supernatural), kind of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:41:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,755</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchesterstupid/pseuds/winchesterstupid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is always leaving. Dean just wants him to let himself be happy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. sorghum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>a WIP that recent spn promos have prompted me to finesse &amp; post. MCD doesn’t last long. cw: suicide.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>09/17/2020<br/>
10:37 AM CDT<br/>
Saddle Road, Worthy, Iowa</p><p><em>Idiot</em>, is all Dean can think. He stares down at the body, the expressionless face. The dead, expressionless face of his best friend. His only friend, actually.<br/>
Actually, his ex-only friend.<br/>
His friend who is dead. Again.<br/>
It’s super dramatic.<br/>
“Good one,” Dean tells the sky. “Funny.”<br/>
The sky doesn’t say anything back, mostly because it’s empty. Every stupid angel supposed to be up there is dead. Dean suddenly realizes that with Chuck’s most recent leaving-the-party favor, he’s witnessed the extinction of a whole species. An entire fucking genocide.<br/>
“You proud of this?” Dean asks the sky. He aborts an angry gesture toward the corpse, finds he can’t actually look at it. “You laughin’ it up?”<br/>
Heaven is empty, and God is in the wind, and Dean is talking to nobody, and suddenly that hits him like a ton of feathers. Some sick voice, rising with the bile in his throat, whispers it with a smug little smirk on its face: <em>Alone again.</em><br/>
Castiel is dead for the last time.<br/>
Dean grips his weak knee as it buckles, tries not to crumple as he vomits on the side of the road. He makes it quick, though, business-like. He’s a professional. Fat chance that Chuck, the squirrely son of a bitch, can take him down like this. Dean Winchester doesn’t give up just because his—because he’s—<br/>
Aw, who is he kidding? He pukes and pukes and pukes his guts out and then just dry-heaves when his stomach churns emptily on itself. He dry-heaves and hopes Sam won’t find him like this.<br/>
And speak of the devil, Chuck must be laughing his fucking ass off as Sam’s shaggy head emerges from the bent stalks of grain. He clambers out of the sorghum field, panting like he just ran a whole marathon. “Guys? You won’t believe how, but I got it.” In one hand he holds an iron axe; in the other, the decapitated head of the yaksha hangs by its hair. Sam is out of breath and disheveled and has a gash in his cheek, but he’s otherwise fine. That’s good, that Sam’s alive. His face goes ashen when he sees the body, but he’s still alive. That’s good. Dean wipes the bile from his lip, sucks in a breath that tastes like death.<br/>
Good is kind of a meaningless word right now.<br/>
“Cas?” Sam asks, the word coming out harsh as he looks from the corpse to his brother. “Dean?”<br/>
“He’s dead,” Dean announces. He retches again just saying it.<br/>
“What the fuck?” Sam sputters like a car trying to start. The head goes rolling down the slope of the shoulder, back into obscurity among the matted crop as Sam rushes forward, a little Bambi stumble in his awkwardly long legs. He bends and fumbles at lifting Castiel’s collar to feel his pulse, as if angels have a pulse. As if there is even a chance that Cas is still alive. And if Cas had still been an angel and alive, Sam might have found a pulse, but all he finds now is his hands slick with the blood welling from a clean puncture in their only friend’s throat.<br/>
“Dean?” Sam asks, pale against the crimson on his hands, and he watches as the angel blade drops from Dean’s equally crimson hands. Dean hadn’t even realized he was still holding it. It had happened so fast. Now he remembers, vaguely, thinking that if he moved quickly enough, that if he just pulled it out quickly enough, he could save—<br/>
Dean doubles over and retches again, bitterness roiling in the back of his throat even though his stomach is empty, completely fucking hollow. He wipes his mouth and inadvertently streaks angel blood across his chin, and it tastes like ozone, and like Cas, and it tastes like old copper, and like Cas.<br/>
He hates this. Obviously, he hates this, but also he <em>hates</em> this.<br/>
Sam is standing up again, fussing, straightening out the slouch in Dean’s shoulders, giant spidery hands cradling his sick brother’s slack face. “What the fuck happened, Dean?” Sam demands. “Are you okay? Dean, <em>what the fuck happened?”</em><br/>
Inexplicably, Dean laughs. He laughs from his throat, so it’s choked and ragged and it stutters like he’s about to be crying. He’s not crying yet, though, and he holds onto that, because he refuses to give God what he wants, because Dean Winchester doesn’t give up. Doesn’t give up. Won’t give up. Can’t.<br/>
Might, though. He might. Dean thinks he might give up.<br/>
“The bastard killed himself,” is what comes out through his gritted teeth, through his ugly laughter. He palms at his eyes. There aren’t tears. Only a furious sting. “I don’t—we were just—”<br/>
Sam grips him tighter, fists in his collar to keep his useless big brother from collapsing. Dean can see the gears working furiously in his head to put this puzzle together. “Why, Dean? Kill himself why?”<br/>
“He killed himself,” Dean repeats stupidly. It’s all he can think. “You think it was something I said?” He feels numb. He’s probably in shock. Shock can happen in situations like this, hero luck or no. In a way, the numbness is okay, but it is pulled violently away from him every time he glances over and sees Castiel’s body stretched out along the side of the road like a broken animal. Dean feels like he’s floating somewhere outside his own head. “This isn’t happening,” he hears himself say. It doesn’t even sound like his voice.<br/>
“Dean, you need to tell me what’s going on,” Sam barks, the bewilderment apparent in every crease of his aging face. He’s going a little bit gray around the temples. That’s new. It’s weird.<br/>
Dean finds the steady in his legs and separates himself from his brother’s vice-grip. He’s shaky, and regretting skipping lunch for the first time in his life, but he will stand on his own for this damn funeral out of all the damn funerals they’ve had. And then? Then his knees can buckle all they want. He’ll find a nice piece of ground to lower himself into.<br/>
He can’t look at the body. He’ll throw up again.<br/>
“Dean, please, you have to talk to me so I can help. What happened to Cas?” Sam all but smacks him like he’s some hysteric maiden and Dean admits that he was wrong about two things:<br/>
1) Dean Winchester Never Gives Up<br/>
and<br/>
2) Dean Winchester Can Stand Up By Himself.<br/>
He backs up until his ass bumps Baby’s door and he leans into the metal comfort, and then he slides down it until his shaking legs are folded up uncomfortably in front of him and his hands dangle like the useless things they are. His face burns with an ugly fire, the pressure right behind his eyes building, the urge to weep helplessly building until it hurts to hold it back.<br/>
“God was right,” Dean says. “We lost.”<br/>
“No, no, Dean, no. This has to be a—a trick. He’s trying to mess with our heads,” Sam argues. “He’s just playing us. Trying to make us fall apart.”<br/>
“This is the end,” Dean spits. “This is the end of Chuck’s story.”<br/>
“He’s died before, Dean, we can get him back. He always comes back!”<br/>
“He isn’t necessary to the plot.” His tongue feels foreign in his mouth. The pressure boldens at the back of his throat, pricks his eyes. “This is the end. What’s dead is dead, Sam, is staying dead. You read, don’t you? You know authors like closure?”<br/>
“His body,” Sam argues, because Sam always argues, because Sam is a stubborn bastard and Eileen is alive but Cas is not. “Rowena had ways to resurrect people, and we have his body.“<br/>
But stubbornness isn’t enough.<br/>
To prove it, that all hope is lost, Chuck fucks them over again. The corpse erupts. Dean watches as Castiel’s suicide wound hisses and then blackens, and a dark viscous substance rises from between his chapped lips, from the unseeing hailstones of his eyes.<br/>
“What the hell,” Sam says breathlessly, and Dean starts to laugh helplessly again as Castiel’s body melts into a sinking black liquid. <em>Shit,</em> is what Dean thinks as his friend melts away, <em>maybe I </em>am<em> a hysteric maiden. </em><br/>
So what is the last earthly remains of their only friend and his stupid constant trench coat drains into the yellow roadside grass. The only sign that a corpse was ever there is the smears of black blood on Dean’s palms and Sam’s fingertips, like motor oil.<br/>
“Good one,” Dean tells the sky, cradling his hands loosely against his chest. “You got me. You got me, asshole. You got me, you beat me, you win. Hear me, God? You win.”<br/>
He’d go on, but he’s so exhausted, and Sam looks like he’s about to throw up, too. At least he’s not asking questions anymore.<br/>
Sam bends down to pick at the spot where Castiel used to be. There’s a few things lying in the grass that didn’t disappear—photographs, cellphone, crumpled notes, a broken nose off one of Jack’s clay sculptures from his art phase—and Sam gathers them, glancing at Dean before putting some of the minor baubles in his own pockets.<br/>
“We can find a way to get him back,” Sam says, and it’s so disingenuous that he sounds hurt by it himself. He shows Dean what’s left in his hand, a cassette tape, the tape with the peeling label that has his handwriting on it.<br/>
“No,” Dean manages to say. He forces himself to stare at the gravel instead of the black ichor on his hands. “Put it away.”<br/>
Sam shuffles, pockets the mixtape, rubs a hand through his tangled hair. “We can—” he begins, but is shut off by whatever hopeless thing he sees in his brother’s face. He bites the inside of his cheek, chews it nervously like when he was little. His eyes are wet as he drops unceremoniously to the ground beside Dean, and he looks empty, too. “Don’t give up,” he says tremulously. “Please. Please, man. Don’t you give up too.”<br/>
Dean stares at the gravel.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. and blackbirds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Flashback to thirty minutes ago when Dean’s heart broke for the last time.<br/>CW: suicide</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>09/17/2020<br/>
11:13 AM CDT<br/>
Saddle Road, Worthy, Iowa</p><p>The ride to the motel is utterly silent. Sam drives and Dean closes his eyes and leans into the seat, but instead of darkness he sees Castiel’s expression folding in on itself, sees Castiel reaching for his blade, sees his own hands too slow at the hilt buried in Castiel’s throat. <em>I’m sorry,</em> he’d said.</p><p>They’d just been talking, waiting for Sam to report back after he found the yaksha’s lair. It was just going to be ten minutes of waiting. They’d just been staring at the tide of yellow grain.<br/>
10:28 AM, high rising sun, crisp weather. Sam had been gone for three and a half minutes.<br/>
“I’m sorry too,” Cas had said abruptly. He was following a flock of blackbirds with his eyes.<br/>
“What?” Dean prompted, letting the head of his iron axe rest on the ground.<br/>
“You apologized. In Purgatory. And I, uh, I’m sorry too. For many things.” They both snort a little at that. “I just mean that I—well, I’ve apologized a lot, and it’s done very little to make up for my shortcomings, but I feel the need to do it again. I’m sorry, Dean, for letting you doubt this. Us.”<br/>
Dean kept his mouth shut even though those damn apologies and soul-baring confessions had always sounded so intimate in Castiel’s rough voice.<br/>
“With everything I’ve messed up,” Castiel continued, taking the silence as encouragement, “I realize it must seem like I’m some kind of plot device that Chuck uses for exactly that purpose. Messing you up.”<br/>
Dean had jostled his shoulder, friendly. Friendly because it was safe. “Enough with the apologies, huh, buddy? We’ve all messed up. We have equal shares of the blame, but it’s all part of God’s favorite soap opera, right? He’s the master of puppets here, pulling our strings, pushing our buttons. None of this is on us. Right?”<br/>
Castiel nodded uncertainly, so Dean forged on. “Sure, I’m mad as hell about it, but I...Cas, I didn’t mean for it to all come out at you. I never meant for it to go that far, man. Never wanted to make you feel like you couldn’t, y’know, stay.” A pause for Dean to gather his courage to say this nauseating chick-flick thing: “I meant it, Cas. I want you to stay, man.”<br/>
“I know.” Castiel’s sincere gaze flicked over like he was concerned that Dean would be crying again just saying this. “You’re my best friend, too, Dean. You and Sam, Jack, and the others that we’ve lost, you’re my family, and I’m so thankful for it.” Almost shyly, he looked down at his shoes. “If it’s worth anything, most of the times that I’ve had to leave, I didn’t want to. But—”<br/>
“But it wasn’t up to you. Yeah, I know,” Dean finished ruefully. Cas nodded, glanced away.<br/>
Dean checked his phone (10:32 PM). Sam still had three minutes left.<br/>
Meaning Dean still had three minutes left to nut up and make his move. A painfully long three minutes that wasn’t going to go any faster standing in silence.<br/>
“Y’know,” Dean started. “Once the kid ganks God, man, I promise, we’ll take care of him, do whatever we have to do to keep him alive, keep him with us, and then we’ll be...it’ll be good, Cas. It’ll be good, right?”<br/>
Cas nodded again, resolute. Dean hadn’t known what he would have given to see the light come back into his eyes. Hadn’t know how that would make him feel once it did.<br/>
Now he knew, and it scared the shit out of him. Give it time—hell, he’d given it a decade, hadn’t he? He had to know for sure by now. What all the fucking butterflies in his stomach meant.<br/>
So Dean swallowed back every screaming instinct and went on. “Cas,” he started. “Back in Purgatory, when you were—when I was praying, I almost—” Fuck, but this was difficult. He ground the head of the axe into the dust just to have something to fidget with while he gritted it out. “I wanted to tell you something, Cas, but if I’m gonna say it, I want to say it in person. If this is really, really the end, come what may, win or lose, it isn’t right that one of us dies before you get to hear it.” He shrugged, like his heart wasn’t palpitating, like this was just a casual conversation they were having, like Cas staring at him wasn’t making him flush three different shades of embarrassment. He cleared his throat. “So, yeah, fuck it. Cas, I love you.”<br/>
And damn his effort but that did not sound as butch as he had hoped. Cas froze for what felt like an entire minute so the only sound was the wind stirring the golden tips of the grain and a distant crow. Dean could feel his ears heat up, and all he could think was <em>idiot, I’m a fucking idiot.</em> In retrospect, that silent minute was when the nausea had started. He’d been afraid to even turn his head out of fear the creak of his neck would make the angel actually take off like a track runner at a gunshot. But a risk was a risk, and Dean Winchester never backed down from a fight.<br/>
“Cas?” he had said finally. “You okay, buddy?”<br/>
Dean had stolen a quick sideways glance at his friend.<br/>
There was a softness in his mouth that grooved the whole of his face. His eyes were misty. And though Cas was grappling to hide it, he looked so damn happy.<br/>
It was good to see. It was good to say.<br/>
Prompted into speech, albeit in a choked kind of voice, Castiel said, “Dean, I—” And then, “Yes. I’m okay. I’m very okay.”<br/>
“Uh, good. That’s a...good.”<br/>
Cas had—Christ, he’d hesitated, like he’d been having second thoughts about what he was about to do, but the hesitation turned into determination and Dean didn’t think about it until after—and he’d pulled him into a hug fierce enough to make him drop his axe entirely. “Dean,” he said gently, muffled in his shoulder. Dean had let himself melt into it, had squeezed him back, had just let himself breathe in relief.<br/>
Dean had laughed then, because it had been so <em>good,</em> and he’d thought, in that moment, that he could die happy.<br/>
Naturally his phone chose that time to buzz—it was probably Sam. Dean loosened his grip and tapped Cas on the shoulder, suggesting a break. “Can we postpone this, man? We’re here on business, in case you forgot.”<br/>
“Ah,” Cas huffed. “Sorry.” His grip had tightened fractionally for a moment, bracingly; and then as swiftly as they’d joined he had stationed himself by the edge of the field, eyes damp.<br/>
“No big deal. No more apologies, remember?” Dean had glanced down at the new text. He’d looked away for a second and missed the sight of the blade sliding into Castiel’s hand.<br/>
“That’s not what I meant,” Cas said. His voice sounded weird so Dean had looked up again, noticed the blade, noticed the distress on his face. Cas had said, “I’m sorry for what I have to do, and I do have to do this, Dean. I need you to know,” he had said, eyes blazing even without the help of his grace, “that this was <em>my</em> choice.”<br/>
It was then that the surface tension gave and the gravity of the situation set in. Dean had taken a step forward, suddenly aware of the large distance that had manifested between them that wasn’t just physical. The angel’s eyes had been focused somewhere else.<br/>
“What are you talking about?” Dean said.<br/>
Cas dragged in a breath that he didn’t need. He had smiled—maybe for Dean to remember later, to comfort him. “Take care of yourself.”<br/>
Dean remembered the hissing inhale he’d taken. He remembered that tone, knew it never came before anything good. “Cas, you’re freakin’ me out. Why don’t you slow down and we can talk this out. Just talk to me, Cas, please. Please, Cas? What is this?”<br/>
He knew what it was.<br/>
Castiel hefted the blade. “Goodbye, Dean.”<br/>
And then it was just over.</p><p>Dean presses the back of his head into the vinyl of Baby’s seat and tries to unsear the image from his mind. It’s about as practical as unslicing a loaf of bread.<br/>
Even as the sun is shining, he’s cold all over.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. some kind of sex joke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sam commits a misdemeanor in a motel. Dean makes a decision.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>09/17/2020<br/>
12:47 PM CDT<br/>
Bentree Road, Worthy, Iowa</p><p>They arrive at the Budget Inn. It takes Dean a minute to exit the car, but Sam waits, squinting at the hot black pavement and the crows, at least nine or ten, shuffling on the powerlines.<br/>
Once in the room, Dean gets comfortable and gets drinking. He digs into some more lore about yakshas, just in case they missed something important, like some sort of suicide curse they might be able to cast, or if their corpses are good for anything other than burning. Dean does not stop. Dean does not collect pass GO and collect $200. Dean does not reply to any of Sam’s questions, which are more courtesy than anything: <em>You holding up okay? Want anything to eat? Want the bathroom first?</em> Dean does not look at the couch where Castiel had slept (or whatever) the night before, because whatever signs of life had been indented in the sagging cushion are just artifacts now. Dean should shower and brush his teeth, because he probably smells like the vomit he can still taste, but he figures enough alcohol will deaden his tastebuds, so he does not.<br/>
He’s four beers deep when Sam, who did shower and brush his teeth and change his clothes and still manages to look impossibly weary, approaches him with a neatly folded note. It says SAM &amp; DEAN in careful red Sharpie.<br/>
“What’s this,” Dean asks, not caring for how dull his voice sounds. Not caring for anything else, either, but especially not caring for how husked he sounds. The brute emptiness echoes in Sam’s little kicked-dog flinch. He hasn’t felt like this since, probably, directly after the last time Cas died.<br/>
“A note,” Sam says helpfully, placing it in front of him. “It was in his pocket. I, um, read it. Guess he had a deal with the Empty, his life for Jack’s soul. Guess it was time to pay up.”<br/>
“Great,” Dean says. He shoves it across the plastic kitchen table, away from his growing forest of empty bottles and the one he’s currently nursing. He’s not sure, but he thinks he might break down (again) if he sees Castiel’s handwriting, and if he breaks he’s afraid he won’t ever be able to put himself back together.<br/>
“Um. Okay.” Sam clears his throat. “Uh. I think this is Rowena's.” Sam pushes another item into Dean’s personal space again, a charm with the initials R.M. stitched in intricate gold lettering on the purple cloth. “He had this on him and he says in the note that it might be important? Maybe—”<br/>
“I’m going to bed,” Dean interrupts, even though it’s barely 2PM. They both know it’s code for <em>drink myself into a stupor.</em> He continues before Sam can protest, before the sheer stupid hope in his brother’s voice breaks him right here and now. “Why don’t you go for a drive? Pick up some Slim Jims. And more beer. We’re almost out.” He clinks his drink against an empty bottle, ignoring the existence of the sixer still in the fridge. Fuck it, he’s getting beer-drunk.<br/>
“Um,” Sam says. “Okay. In your car?”<br/>
“Yeah,” Dean says. “In my car.”<br/>
So Sam goes for a drive. Dean goes to bed.</p><p>At some point, sprawled on a bed in a state of undress, Dean actually falls into a murky dreamless sleep. He only wakes when the door to their room crashes open and rebounds off the wall. His gun is in hand and aimed before he registers Sam’s lanky frame in the doorway. It’s only his silhouette--black against a velvet night sky--but Dean is ready for a fight even half-asleep and drunk. He struggles to his feet, searches for pants. “Christ, you scared th’shit outta me," he croaks. "What’s happening?”<br/>
“I got it,” Sam huffs through a disbelieving half-smile. “I fucking got him.”<br/>
Dean pauses, squints at him blearily, takes in the manic expression on his brother’s face. Assesses the time again: past midnight, his phone says. “Got what?”<br/>
Sam’s mouth contorts like he’s remembering a joke. It’s the look he’d get when he was a kid, right before he’d start bouncing off the walls, a look worn by the ignorant and blissed. It’s definitely not the kind of look somebody wears after their friend has made himself into a kebab.<br/>
“Sam?” Dean prompts again, slowly, like he is talking to that ignorant little kid. “What do you have?”<br/>
Sam smiles fully. “It’s better if I just show you.”<br/>
He grabs Dean’s elbow and drags him outside.<br/>
Dean is wearing nothing but his Chewbacca underwear, his socks, and his .45, but there’s nobody around at 1AM in the parking lot of a motel on a midwestern highway, and he doesn’t have the decency to be embarrassed, anyways. Still, he hisses: "You sure this can't wait til morning?"<br/>
“No. Just come on.”<br/>
Sam herds him down the row of rooms to the one under construction due to vandalism; the one the pimply concierge called a <em>legit safety and hygiene concern</em>. Obviously, the caution tape and cheap lock weren't enough to keep Sam out. Before they enter, he pauses and fixes Dean with a sharp look.<br/>
“Don’t freak out,” he says.<br/>
“What is this?” Dean says.<br/>
“Promise me you won’t freak out,” he says.<br/>
“Uh, no offense, Sammy, but that’s the only thing you could’ve said that would freak me out more than I already am.”<br/>
Sam grimaces and hastily rakes his hair behind his ears. “Just—Dean, don’t be afraid, or angry, or—or upset, okay? This is a good thing. There’s no—well, okay, there’s one drawback, but the important thing is he’s here—”<br/>
With all the energy of someone whose stomach has just been pumped, Dean reaches for the door, but Sam grabs his wrist before he can push it open.<br/>
“Dean, it might not look like it, but I swear this is a good thing.”<br/>
Dean shakes him off. “You have three seconds to explain what we’re doing before I bust in there.”<br/>
“Thought it would be safest here,” Sam explains. “In case anything went wrong. But nothing went wrong, I swear, it’s him. You just have to—to promise you won’t freak out.”<br/>
<em>Fuck that.</em> Sam can read it in his glare.<br/>
“Fine.” He relents, hands raised in surrender. “Okay. No promises, I get it. But it’s really him.”<br/>
“You keep fucking saying that. It’s really who?” Dean snaps. From Sam’s tone and the stupid hopeful expression on his face, he knows who he means, but it can’t really be <em>him.</em> Cas died in God’s most final chapter, not even leaving a body to burn. Castiel-angel-of-Thursday is as dead as dead gets. Dead, period. Quite literally end of story.<br/>
Still, stupid and hopeful, Dean asks, “Who?”<br/>
Sam ignores him, puts his weight against the door. It swings open slowly, achingly slowly, spilling pale light over the pavement, and suddenly Dean finds himself gazing up at a great shining nebula that fills the wrecked motel room.<br/>
“Cas,” Sam says, awestruck.<br/>
Dean feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He’s not sure if he should take a step forward or back, so he settles for grasping dizzily for a shelf to lean on. The nebula looms in front of him, above him, an overwhelming presence draped in clouds of quicksilver. “What the fuck?”<br/>
Sam’s grin is wide and bright and Dean would be glad to see it if he weren’t so shellshocked. “It’s Cas. I told you we’d get him back.”<br/>
“How,” Dean rasps. He suspects he might be sick again soon, but the closer he gets to the mesmerizing cloud, the better he feels, the better he understands. It is Cas. It's Cas. He can feel it.<br/>
“With Rowena’s help. That charm he had was a gift from her. I just finished what she must’ve started for him a while ago. It’s like a safety net, like Rowena’s revival mechanism, and it contained the spell to start it up. They cordoned off a piece of his soul so it could be, I dunno, preserved.”<br/>
They stare at the cloud, which now that Dean looks closer he sees is constantly shifting, almost eddying like an ocean current. Like a curious toddler, he reaches out to touch before remembering the cloud is a living thing—his fallen angel buddy, the living thing. His brain is slow to catch up with his senses.<br/>
“Wait. Cas has a soul?”<br/>
Sam sort of jitters. “Yeah, we—I don’t know how, but he could have—I dunno, <em>grown</em> one? Back when he got turned human. You think?”<br/>
Dean stops staring just long enough to cast a withering look at Sam. “That’s crazy.”<br/>
The earnest expression doesn’t drop from Sam’s face even as he scoffs. He can’t tear his eyes away for even a second; typical Bible nerd. “Us trying to kill God is crazy. This is—this is par for the course, Dean.”<br/>
Okay, fair enough, Dean figures. “But why is his soul a cloud? A very cool cloud,” he amends, just in case it can hear him, “but it kinda just looks like his grace?”<br/>
Because Sam has no goddamn sense of self-preservation, he sticks his hand right into the mist. It curls around his forearm and Sam smiles down at it like it’s just a regular friendly handshake. “It’s both. It’s what his essence looks like without a vessel. Whatever Rowena set up, he can survive on Earth without one. It’s awkward, maybe, but manageable. It’s a temporary inconvenience until he finds a new vessel.”<br/>
Though Sam says it’s Cas (and it feels so much like Cas), Dean’s heart still stops when the cloud-creature moves to engulf his brother. He tugs Sam back, ignoring the electric jolt through his skin when he brushes through the mist. The amount of conflicting emotions crashing through his brain is, frankly, kind of incredible.<br/>
“Right, Carol Anne, how about you just take a step back. How are you so sure about all of this?”<br/>
Sam allows himself to be pulled away, but he half-smiles when he meets Dean’s eyes like he’s thinking of that funny joke again. “He, uh, he kinda told me.”<br/>
“Told you?”<br/>
“Telepathically. Kinda.” His face softens. Maybe he can sense it’ll break Dean again if this is a fluke, because his voice turns so dead serious that Dean forgets this entire situation is completely, totally Kanye-for-President insane. “Trust me. It’s okay. It’s him, Dean. He’s back.”<br/>
Maybe it’s a testament to these past forty-odd years together that part of Dean actually relaxes when he hears that. “Cas is back,” he repeats. Giving himself a second to wrap his head around it.<br/>
He considers the cloud. “Well. Ish.”<br/>
And because he is a curious toddler, he steps further into the room and reaches out like Sam did. Immediately his hand is gloved by the white tendrils, and the rest of the entity follows to wreath him in its midst. It’s Cas. It is Cas, and it is so Cas that he almost cries again with the sheer relief of how familiar it feels to be standing with his friend again. It’s like walking on the beach after a storm. It’s like being swaddled in an electric blanket. It’s like driving through a foggy morning. It’s like standing naked in a sauna. It’s like—it’s like—<br/>
A question waiting for an answer.<br/>
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. With a sound like a book closing, the nebula tucks itself completely inside his chest, taking all the light with it. For a split second in the dark room, Dean marvels at the abrupt feeling that he is whole again, that Cas is exactly where he's meant to be. He thinks this is what contentment is.<br/>
“What the hell--” Now it’s Sam’s turn to freak out. He spins Dean around, searching for where the cloud might be hiding. “What the hell was that? Where did he go?”<br/>
“Uh,” Dean says, stepping back to run a hand through his static hair. He shakes his head, realizing there isn’t a comfortable way to say this. “He’s a little bit...in me.”<br/>
“He’s—what?” Sam looks more a mess than usual, Dean realizes. His temple is blooming with a bruise from the fight with the yaksha. Probably it needs ice. “He’s in—?”<br/>
“He needs someplace to rest,” Dean snaps, and the heat that crawls up the back of his neck is not at all welcome. “Don’t freak out, huh? I’m not a vessel or anything. He’s just...” <em>I can feel him. He’s taking a nap,</em> Dean doesn’t say, giddily. “He has to gather his strength. Until we can find him a...” Find him what? Jimmy’s vessel is gone, so what? Look for some unsuspecting bastard to hold him through the prizefight against God? Yeah, no. “Until we can get his body back,” he decides, with no idea how they’ll get that done.<br/>
But still. It’s a plan. Feels good.<br/>
Sam looks disbelieving, but he’s suspended his disbelief enough to get Cas back from the dead again, so Dean thinks he can handle it from here. In fact, he can handle anything. Kill God? No problem.<br/>
"So you're fine?" Sam prods. "Cas is fine?"<br/>
“Yeah, we're alright, Sammy.” Dean guides his gangly dumbfounded brother out of the room and closes the door behind them. “How about you get some shuteye, huh?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>we are not depressed no more</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. and then the rinse cycle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>some gay shit pt. 1</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>am becoming aware that my format maybe sucks ass and also this is all unedited so haha fuck. this one is short because it was meant to be longer but i didn't finish writing it and got impatient with myself.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>No surprise, but Dean is too wired to sleep. Unfortunately, it’s 3AM, and there’s not much else to do, so he’s entertaining himself in the laundry room when Cas wakes up. <br/>One second he’s playing Candy Crush on his phone and waiting for the rinse cycle to end, and then his spine is stiffening as if there’s an electric wire running up his back. It isn’t painful—hell, it isn’t even unpleasant, just unexpected. Kinda feels like Magic Fingers, but almost—but nevermind <em>that train of thought.</em> Christ.<br/>Dean runs a hand over the back of his neck where the fine hairs are standing on end. He’s even got goosebumps, like some kind of green hunter shitting himself over a ghost. “Cas? That you?”<br/><em>(hello dean)</em><br/>It’s more feeling than words, but Dean knows the greeting when he hears it. He tries not to think hard about the smile that spreads so quickly across his face—his friend just came back to life, kinda, so he’s allowed a damn smile. “Hey, man. You had us scared for a minute.”<br/>Dean feels rather than hears Castiel’s regret—<em>(sorry)</em>, he emits, and Dean receives sorrow in his own heart. It’s sharp enough that he can just barely distinguish it from his own, but it’s definitely a form of communication.<br/>He laughs it off, because laughing is easy, even if his is too loud and shaky. “No worries. You’re back, kinda, so that’s a—no biggie, huh?”<br/><em>(no biggie)</em> Castiel agrees. Dean grins, and then he’s hit with a wave of concern that isn’t his. And--not that he should know this because he’s never been a father--it’s a paternal concern.<br/><em>(?jack?)</em> Cas wonders.<br/>“Jack? You asking if he knows?” Affirmative. Dean shakes his head. “Nah. Uh. He doesn’t even know that you, uh. Well.” The laundry room suddenly seems to be very cramped and stuffy, so he stands up and walks over to ogle some lacy pink thing hanging out of an abandoned basket. “Jack, uh, we thought he wouldn’t take it well, so we just didn’t tell him. And now with this whole mess...we figured it would be easier to show him than tell him. Didn’t want him to worry, because there’s nothing to worry about, right?”<br/>Another affirmative, and a sense of relief that floods Dean’s mental periphery. It’s weird--despite what the angels say, angel feelings don’t really seem very different from human feelings at all. Or maybe that’s just Cas, the odd man out as always.<br/><em>(sorry)</em> Castiel repeats.<br/>“No biggie,” Dean repeats in turn, and forces another smile on his face, but it’s useless. He knows they’re still going to have to talk about this. <br/>He double-checks the glass door and finds the shadow-shrouded parking strip is still empty, save for the Impala. “So what was that, man? Did Chuck take over or something?” For a second there’s quiet. Dean feels it as apprehension. Then comes regret, and guilt, and something far more miserable.<br/><em>(no)</em> Cas says.<br/>“Oh.” So it was his choice, then. Dean nods once, jerkily, taking that in, tasting what it means. He wonders if the mindmeld goes two ways. If he’s learned anything from Spock, it’s likely that Cas can already sense his guilt, so he goes ahead with what’s been rolling around his head for the past eleven hours. “Was it my fault?”<br/><em>(No)</em> Castiel repeats, but it’s stronger than last time. A metaphysical <em>of course not.</em><br/>It doesn’t feel a hundred percent true, though.<br/>Dean persists, even if it’s a little weird talking out loud to himself. “But it was, though, wasn’t it? It was because I told you...the thing I told you?” Dean cringes. It feels like Cas cringes too.<br/>Another negatory. Dean hopes Cas can feel his teeth grit. “Y’know, you’re in my head. I can tell when you’re lying.”<br/>When Cas speaks (for lack of a better word) again, it’s quick and restrained so that Dean can barely feel it at all.<br/><em>(tired)</em><br/>“Cas,” he tries, but the electric crackle fades. He’s sleeping again.<br/>A loud beep alerts Dean that the rinse cycle is ending. He loads the dryer in silence.</p>
<p>Sam is still asleep when he gets back to the room, but he startles awake as Dean passes the foot of his bed, and Dean has to soothe the pistol out of his hands.<br/>“How are you?” Sam asks once he’s aware enough.<br/>“Good. How are you?”<br/>Sam nods, looking lost. “Good.”<br/>“Good.” Dean purses his lips. “Great. Scintillating conversation. Go back to bed, man.”<br/>“Is he—” Sam makes a twitchy movement toward his head. “Is he okay?”<br/>“Yeah,” Dean says, and scratches his neck. “Yeah, I dunno.”<br/>“Has he—”<br/>“Yeah, he...talked to me. Tired, though. He’s, uh...” Acting guilty? Acting weird, as always? Still impossible to talk to? All of the above? “He’s pretty whipped.”<br/>“Makes sense,” Sam offers. “Being tired. After what he...”<br/>“Yeah.”<br/>Sam is clearly too exhausted to be having this conversation. He doesn’t have enough energy to pull his puppy-dog eyes, much less help Dean work through his personal shit. So, with the practiced movement of somebody who’s been tricking his kid brother into early curfews for four decades, Dean kicks his boots off and yawns like he’s going to be able to sleep. When he flops back on his bed, Sam copies him, which is a win of some kind. “We’ll head out early, huh? You can nap in the car, too.”<br/>“Sounds good,” Sam sighs, relieved. “Glad you’re feeling better, Dean. Really.” <br/>“Yeah. Me too.” Dean pauses. A few seconds passes in the dark, or maybe it’s a few minutes.<br/>“Sammy,” Dean says, “do you think this is another trick?”<br/>His brother is already snoring.<br/>Dean lays back, tugs the comforter over his legs. His torso is warm enough. Dean’s chest feels like a small radiator. He thinks he’d be happy.<br/>It’s a strange night.</p>
<p>At some point during the strange night it rains. Baby is sparkling in the morning sun.<br/>“Hey there, sweetheart,” Dean coos. Sam looks perturbed, as usual, because he has no respect for the sacred bond between driver and car.<br/>They’re on the road, unspeaking, letting the golden oldies station make conversation for them. Sam is obviously ginger around Dean’s good mood, but he’s not about to complain. He deserves something good, damn it. He’s got a half-dead angel trapped in his brain—the least he can do is enjoy the open road and his tunes.<br/>Out of the blue, Sam chuckles. “Guess what?”<br/>“What?”<br/>He’s smiling at his phone, all warmth, which is a vast and welcome contrast to the mopey way he’s been since Eileen split. “Charlie says she’s stopping by.”<br/>For a second Dean completely blanks—forgets, firstly, the rift opening and all the Apocalypse World vets coming through; forgets, more importantly, that his Charlie is dead. He forgets the grim battle-hardened survivor that he knows and instead he thinks of a chipper Trekkie who keeps a picture of Kate Mulgrew in her wallet.<br/>“Great,” Dean says, genuinely enthusiastic and already plotting a LOTRs movie marathon. “She got a case nearby, or—?”<br/>“Just wanted to check in, look at some lorebooks. She’s setting up some kinda safehouse, I guess, up in the Rockies. Wants the warding to be right.”<br/>And <em>then</em> he remembers. Dean’s Charlie, while a nerd, would never have fucked off to the Rockies. New York, maybe. Not the mountains.<br/>He deflates. “Okay.”<br/>“She’s bringing somebody. A friend.” Sam exhales in a puff. “Um, her girlfriend. Wh—uh, no shit. Her girlfriend is a, uh, witch.”<br/>“A what?”<br/>“A—a witch? Charlie says, um, like Glinda but sexier?”<br/>“Sexi<em>er?”</em> Dean asks. Sam offers a weird look. “Nevermind. That’s not important. She’s bringing a witch to the bunker?” Bitterly, maybe unfairly, Dean thinks that <em>their</em> Charlie would never have done that. Not out of the goddamn blue like that. She never would’ve kept the girlfriend thing a secret, either. And she wouldn’t have waited until the end of the fucking world to visit so she could fuck off to the Rockies.<br/>Dean palms his chest to feel the thrum of energy running alongside his heartbeat. He hopes Cas wakes up soon, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle this himself without getting a serious migraine.</p>
<p>The little black Beetle is already parked at the bunker door. Empty and no sign of its passengers anywhere, which means they’re waiting inside.<br/>“Jack,” Dean groans. Betrayed by his family, killed by his grandfather, and the kid is still too trusting for his own good. What will it take for him to learn?<br/>“It’s okay. I told him to let them in,” Sam says casually. <br/>Jack can’t learn because his most mature father-figure is a trusting dumbass, too.<br/>“You crazy? We can’t let strangers in, Sam. What if this is more of God fucking with us? He used Donatello. He was using Eileen. We can’t tell who he’s using to watch us. The one thing we know for sure about Chuck is that he’s a good liar.” His voice is probably louder than necessary. He tries to curb himself. “Listen, man, we can’t trust anybody but us.”<br/>Sam pauses in unlocking the door. “We also can’t be scared of everybody, Dean. That’s how he wins, when he gets us so scared of him that we stop living our lives. We owe Charlie. Every version of her, even if  God’s on our ass.”<br/>Something pained in his face stops Dean from pushing it.<br/>A funeral pyre and a big fucking rift. Shit. Did he really tell Sam that he should’ve died in their Charlie's place?<br/>He takes a deep breath and about ten steps back. “I know, man. I know we owe her. I’m just—we gotta look out for Jack. Until he’s ready. She can stay for a while, but that’s it. I don’t want her involved.”<br/>Sam’s nostrils flare, but he nods. Curtly.<br/>They enter the bunker, the squalling door like music to Dean’s ears. “Home sweet home,” he sighs, tromping down the stairs like he owns the place. In his chest, Castiel is equally relieved. He’s been waking up for the last minute, silently observing their argument. Dean can still feel his disapproval lingering.<br/>“You kept us waiting.”<br/>The brothers peer over the railing and see the three of them—Jack, Apocalypse World Charlie, Apocalypse World Charlie’s witch girlfriend—sitting at the map table. New (fake) Charlie smiles and it’s nothing like the original (real) Charlie’s smile. There’s no recognition or warmth in it. Acquaintances, that’s all they are; friends, maybe. But family? That died in a fucking bathtub.<br/>Five years ago, so <em>get over it.</em><br/>“Yeah, sorry,” Dean says, putting on a friendly face. “The big guy has a small bladder.”<br/>“Welcome back,” Jack greets. “Nobody told me what to do, so I just let them in. I hope that was okay.” He looks at Dean with round eyes, and Dean can’t help but shrug in acquiescence. Jack brightens, scans them both again. “Good. Where’s Cas?”<br/><em>(jack)</em> comes the mournful rejoinder.<br/>Sam shifts uncomfortably. “Um,” he begins.<br/>“He’s fine. Busy. Tell you later,” Dean cuts in. He sets his gaze on the girlfriend, determined to get this nonsense out of the way ASAP. <br/>“So. Witch?” he asks. Sam sputters on empty air.<br/>“My name is Taylor, actually,” the girl replies. Her hair is purple and dreaded. “You’re the short one—must be Dean?”<br/>Okay, ouch. Maybe Sam senses the strain in his smile, because he takes center stage. He reaches out a paw to shake Taylor’s hand (Dean can’t help staring at the <em>Doctor Who</em> tattoo on the back of her palm; of course Charlie finds a nerd bigger than herself).<br/>“Good to meet you, Taylor. I’m Sam Winchester. I dunno if this is awkward to ask, but I have a, uh, professional curiosity—are you a Natural or...?”<br/>“Natural-born into witchery? No, I just borrow. It’s something I picked up along the way, really. I use it mostly for cases.” She shrugs, like opening veins and dissecting small animals is a chill thing to do.<br/>Charlie grins. “Yeah, um, she just dabbles, really. But it sounds a lot sexier to say I’m dating a witch than to say I’m dating an amateur magician.”<br/>Sam throws a look at Dean, like <em>see? No issue.</em> That’s the Stanford education, right there. All he learned from college was how to be smug.<br/>“Alright,” Dean relents, albeit grudgingly. He sizes up the witch again, taking in her combat boots, her piercings, her studded choker, her colorful graphic tattoos. <em>Some kind of punk, you think?</em><br/><em>(sure)</em> Castiel agrees, but Dean gets the sense he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to.<br/>“Nice to meet you,” he says, and it really isn’t his fault if it sounds forced.<br/>Charlie searches his face like she can read his mind. “Is this going to be a problem?” she asks, faux-polite. “Because we can leave. If you’re going to be a dick.”<br/>“No,” Sam blurts. “He’s gonna be fine. Right, Dean?” He shoots a truly evil glare.<br/>“Me, a dick?” Dean exclaims. “Never. I don’t have a problem with it, really. It just, uh,” he avoids Taylor’s judgmentally-arched eyebrows (one is slitted) and suppresses a shiver that maybe has something to do with Cas crawling around his guts like a kid in a ball pit. “It just grosses me out a little, you know.” <br/>Charlie’s jaw tightens and Dean realizes what that sounds like. His skin flushes with heat as he scrambles to recover. “Witches, I mean, they gross me out, with the, uh, the--the thing is we haven’t always had the best interactions with—with witches.” <em>Jesus.</em> His ears are definitely fire engine red. He wants to go to his room and stay there forever. Sam looks horrified. Charlie looks homicidal.<br/><em>(i think you upset her)</em> Castiel observes.<br/>And then, father like son, Jack chimes in. “But we use witchcraft all the time, Dean.”<br/>“I know. I know. Forget it, it’s just a stupid hunter prejudice. Let’s move on.” He drops his bag on the ground and heads for the kitchen before he gets any more commentary. “Anybody feel like burgers? I’m making burgers.”<br/>Taylor asks for <em>tofu.</em> She’s a <em>vegan.</em></p>
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